once upon a scarlet lullaby
by SerenLyall
Summary: To break the unbreakable Leia Organa was to be his final act as a free man. He would play her, and he would break her as even Vader had not been able. And though he might go to die with no one else the wiser, he would know. As would she. But here is a secret, dear friend: Wind, even a gale, only feeds fire.
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine. Unfortunately.

 **Rating:** Mature

 **Content Warnings:** violence, pretty explicit mentions of torture, mentions of rape and child sexual abuse, non-explicit mention of masturbation, language

 **'verse:** serencanon (my personal AU of Legends/the Old EU; for more information on what "serencanon" is, please visit my profile)

 **Time Frame:** a few years post-RotJ, as the Galactic Civil War is drawing to a close. _Note: This is not NOT TFA-compliant, but it was not written to be TFA-compliant._

 **Notes:** I should be writing many other things. Tumblr user srgtbucksbarnes's recent Leia edit really hella inspired me, though. As have the discussions of Leia and the Dark Side that I've seen quite a bit of lately. Thus the birth of this piece.

Huge thanks go out to tumblr users absynthe—minded and princess-sansa-of-ithilien for helping me edit this thing.

* * *

 **once upon a scarlet lullaby**

 _I was once the Empire's prisoner._

 _._

Leia Organa, daughter of Bail Organa and Anakin Skywalker, leader of a near—victorious rebellion, stands in front of a kneeling former ISB agent with arms crossed. Half a dozen soldiers stand in careful guard behind their prisoner, blasters holstered, triumph of a successful mission shining through grins and dancing eyes. There is no sun here, only shadows and artificial lights mounted on graffitied duracrete walls that form heaven and earth. The empty, broken road upon which they stand leads from nowhere to nowhere, ghetto to slum, and is littered with the trash of poverty.

Leia Organa, bruised and tired and wanting to go home to her brother and her lover, looks down at the man kneeling before her, her lips thin and white, eyes dark and unreadable.

The ghastly pale man at her feet looks up, uncowed and cocky, his electric blue eyes fixed on hers, a cruel grin twisting his blood-stained lips. His white ISB uniform is tattered and torn, showing countless oozing abrasions, mottled black and red bruises. Bound hands rest in his lap as he sits back on his heels. But despite the blood and the electrocuffs, his shoulders are unbowed, his chin lifted high in mocking defiance.

"You grew up in the last six years," he says, looking Leia in the eye. A drop of blood beads in the corner of his mouth as he speaks. There is sick familiarity in his voice. "Your daddy would be proud of you.

"Oh wait." He gasps, theatrical and false. "...I forgot." A sick, twisting smile that lights his eyes like a serpent's scales.

Leia simply looks down on him, hands clenching her forearms until her fingers turn white, face a mask woven of nothing.

A long moment of silence. Then the man sighs, laughs. Shakes his head. "I liked you better screaming," he says. "Much more interesting than playing the boring bitch." He turns, cranes his head over a shoulder to look at the soldiers. "Don't you agree?"

One of the soldiers moves, sharp and fast. "Shut up," he snarls, and brings the butt of his blaster cracking down on the prisoner's shoulder. The ISB agent reels, topples forward onto his face. He does not even try to halt his fall.

The soldier lifts his blaster again, ready to deliver another blow, when Leia lifts a hand. "Enough," she says, tone sharp with the edge of command. The soldier hesitates, looks at her—and steps back, a look of shame flickering across his face.

The former ISB agent turns over onto his back where he lies in the dirt. His nose is bleeding, a crimson waterfall pouring over his lips and down his chin.

He is laughing as he meets Leia's eyes once more.

"Pathetic," he says. His tone would be a sneer but for the laughter.

"What do you hope to accomplish by antagonizing me?" Leia asks, crossed arms tightening over her chest. "A quick death? Extra charges of resisting arrest on top of three accounts of murder in an attempt to escape?"

"I just want to see you angry."

A fraction of a pause. A flicker of surprise in Leia's eyes; that was not the answer she had been expecting. "And why is that?" she asks.

The man grins. "Because I want my last memory as a free man to be that of having broken the unbreakable."

Leia stares at him. "You're already a prisoner," she points out with arched eyebrows. "You've already failed."

The agent just keeps grinning. "You haven't arrested me yet."

"Very well," Leia says, tone clipped. She swallows, unwilling to admit that the man's smile and his cocky certainty unnerves her, and begins a speech she has learned by heart this far into the war. "Agent Kellobra Ariel, you are under arrest for war crimes committed in—"

Ariel laughs very suddenly, interrupting her. "Oh, but little princess," he says, tone lilting, "I haven't seen you angry yet."

Leia plows on, voice rising in volume to override the agent's, "—in violation of the 1914th Active War Commission—"

"Come on, just one little scream. One little flash of the wrath you're so _famous_ for."

"—and for atrocities committed against the people of the galaxy."

A flash of electric blue eyes. "I remember you lying on the floor of your cell in a pool of your own vomit and piss, begging for Vader to stop."

A split second hesitation, an unseen flicker of emotion that seizes Leia's heart and sinks into her bones. But she forges on as if she had not heard Ariel's words, had not, for a split instant, felt once more the cold cell floor, the feeling of hands and needles, the agony of her mind invaded, her thoughts unraveled only to be stitched together lopsided.

"You will be tried in the New Republic court of law—"

"You were sobbing," another smile, larger, brighter, crueler, "begging for your _Papá_ to come save you. As if that pathetic, spineless bastard could have saved you."

"—before a jury of your peers—"

"Even your screaming was pathetic. Shrill and whiny, like a little girl."

"—and military personnel."

"I remember looking at you and wondering how I could ever have wanted to fuck you."

Leia pauses again, this time painfully audibly, and closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Continues on through clenched teeth, "You will be provided a defense lawyer—"

"Then again, I guess there's something kind of sweet about fucking a broken little girl, isn't there?"

A curse spat from behind, and then movement from the soldiers once more. Two come in this time, and before Leia can stop them, both deliver a sharp kick to Ariel, still lying on his back. The _crack_ of a rib snapping cuts through the sudden silence.

"Classy," the ISB agent gasps, straightening from where he curled onto his side. He looks up at Leia once again, ignoring the two who had actually attacked him. The blood on his face is now mixed with dirt-turning-mud, and his left eye is beginning to close beneath the fist of an ugly purple bruise.

"You shut the hell up," one of the two soldiers who had just assaulted him snaps. "You shut up, or one of our blasters just might misfire."

"Oh, is that a threat?" Ariel asks. His eyes do not leave Leia's.

"Damn right it is," the second of the guards snarls.

"Stand back, soldiers," Leia snaps, wrenching her gaze from Ariel's to glare at her men.

For half a second, the two disobey. They look at the princess, at the man at their feet, at the princess again. Only then do they stand back, shoulders angrily stuff, jaws set, insubordination glittering in their eyes.

"How cute," Ariel says. "And impressive."

He leans forward, and spits blood on Leia's feet.

Leia blinks but does not flinch, and takes another deep breath, opens her mouth to continue with the arrest.

Before she can speak, however, Ariel says, "You don't even remember me, do you?" He snorts through his swelling nose, grimacing and grinning all at once.

Leia bows her head. Licks her lips.

And then something in her snaps.

With a sudden, savage burst of power, she kneels. She reaches out. Brushes her fingers against Ariel's suddenly still face. Circles her fingers around his chin in an iron—tight grip.

"I remember you," she says, softly. "I remember seeing you laughing silently as I screamed. I remember you coming in with your buddies after Vader had left for the day and shoving my face in my own vomit. I remember you holding me down as the droid injected me again and again and—" Leia chokes on her own words, the memories strangling her.

Ariel smiles. "There you go," he says. "So you do remember."

"Yes," Leia whispers. "I do." A pause. Leia's grip loosens fractionally.

"Oh, come on," Ariel says, lilting, daring. "Don't fail me now, honey." And he spits on her again.

This time the bloody spit hits Leia in the face. She jerks back, instinctively tightens her hold on the man's chin, forcing his face down, away from her.

He laughs, and the sound is wild and proud, though his eyes are to the ground. "That's it," he crows, glancing up at her mockingly through his lashes.

Leia snarls. Releases him with a shove. Makes to stand. "I'm not playing your games," she says.

Ariel catches himself on his bound hands, pushes himself up into half a sitting position. "Oh, but sweetheart," he says, and the nickname Leia has learned to love curdles in her belly, "you already are."

"I won't play your games," Leia says again, harder, louder.

A breath of silence, two. Time hangs in balance. Leia feels her men standing in their half circle watching her and the former ISB agent. She feels Ariel looking at her. Feels his mind, clumsy and untrained, so weak as to be little more than a dully gleaming copper thread against Luke's tapestry of brilliant gold.

 _I dare you._

"Since you were there," she says, softly, turning back to the agent and lifting her free hand to wipe the bloody spittle away, "you should remember what Vader did to me every time I spat on his boots."

Ariel's eyes flash. It is his turn to be surprised by Leia's question. "He hurt you," he says, hiding confusion.

"How?" Leia asks.

"Does it matter how?"

"Yes."

Ariel's eyes narrow with the first glimmer of uncertainty. "Why?"

"You're obsessed with my pain, aren't you?"

"No, that's not—"

"Liar." The accusation is sharp and cold.

"No," Ariel begins again.

Only, before he can say aught else in his defense, he is cut off by Leia spitting, " _Liar!_ I can _feel_ you lying to me. You still dream about it." Her hands clench at her sides. Her entire body trembles. "You like to remember me screaming when you fuck yourself."

"What, no," the agent splutters. But the crimson creeping up over his cheeks and ears betrays him.

"Stop LYING!" Leia screams.

She hadn't meant to do it—hadn't meant to reach out and smash her mind through the flimsie-thin walls surrounding his. Hadn't meant to rip her way in, snatching his mind with hers, forcing her way into his thoughts, his memories, his most secret dreams. But there had been a burning in her blood that needled her bones and wove through her breath, rising like ichor in her throat until she could not breathe save through the taste of blood, until there was nothing _but_ the burning.

She had heard the siren-sweet song, felt the anger burning in her, and she had heeded its call.

And now there are tangles of thought—his thoughts, hers—wrapped around her fingers, swelling into the corners of her skull, twining around her spine. She can feel the red tint of fear swallowing his mind like a tidal wave, can feel his his heart beating faster, faster, faster.

She sees herself through his memories, lying on the floor of the cell she still visits in her nightmares; her back is arched, her is mouth wide in an agonized scream, and her dark eyes are glazed from pain and drugs.

She can see dark barracks and a spartan office. A thousand terror-streaked faces pleading. She can smell the blood of a hundred races, can taste the copper and iron of their lives.

A man's entire life hangs before her eyes—the report " _Death Star destroyed"_ coming over the ship's intercom, and the sick swoop of his stomach as he realizes, That was almost me; the mother who had died at his father's hands when she stopped him at her son's door one night, the words, Not again, dying with her; the smell of rain and autumn decay as he walked down a dozen different roads—paved, mud, cobblestone, sand—with gloved hands in pockets; the stuffed bantha he had snuggled at three and watched burn in the fireplace at four; his first kiss; the taste of cinnamon bread and the cool touch of water; all the men, women, children he's raped in the honor and memory of a man he called father—and in that instant, Leia Organa knows what absolute power is.

"Please," Ariel says, begs of her. "I'm not lying."

But his mind is hers. And she sees the truth.

"You sick monster," Leia says. It is at once condescending and full of hate.

"Please," the man pleads, voice rising in pitch.

"Liar," Leia accuses. "Rapist. Sadist."

Hands lift in bound supplication. "Please."

Leia continues to shake. "You wanted to see me angry.: And now, at last, it is her turn to laugh. The sound is anything but pleasant. "Here's your chance."

"No," the man cries, eyes widening beneath the swelling, " _plea—"_

His grovelling is cut off by a ragged scream tearing from his throat. It is wild, piercing, agonizing. He falls back, head smashing into the duracrete of the street, back arching. He writhes, gurgles, shrieks. Claws at the ground until his nails break and his fingers bleed. Foaming saliva drips over the corner of his mouth.

But she isn't finished. She turns every memory she has of the pain and torment that Vader inflicted upon her back onto the fragile mind shuddering at her feet. Shoves her agony and her nightmares of fire and acid and knives through his own memories, fears, dreams, thoughts; plants them deep in his chest, roots them in his bones, sows them into his blood until his very being echoes with the memory of her screams, of her pain, of her death again and again and again.

And then, abruptly, as though some switch had flipped, Leia is done.

She releases Ariel, and the man collapses to the ground, gasping and pawing at his mouth, his face, his chest. He gurgles what may have been a curse, but the word is so slurred, so confused, so garbled that it is unidentifiable as any known language. His bloody spit, mixed now with bile, dribbles over his lips, and fat tears crawl out, unbidden but unhalted, from his open eyes.

Leia looks down on him. "You wanted to see me angry," she says softly. Her voice is ice and the merciless black of space. "You got your wish."

She feels a dozen eyes on her. Feels the shock radiating from the soldiers standing guard for her, their confusion. She feels their horror—though whether that horror is at her actions, or at this sliver of truth to the rumors that have been circulating about her since the Death Star, since Alderaan, she does not know. Perhaps it is both.

Later she will throw up all the contents of her stomach, from her ration bar lunch to acid bile that burns her throat and mouth. She will vomit until there is nothing left in her but hatred and disgust and horror at what she's just done—at the thrill of pleasure that had crackled through her bones when she felt the man's mind giving way beneath hers, at his scream of pain that was, in truth, only a pale mirror to what her own screams had been.

Later she will find Luke and she will collapse against him, and only then the tears will come. He will pull her into his lap, cradle her against his chest, smooth her hair away from her sweat-soaked forehead and just hold her until she is ready to talk. And when she does, he will remind her again, for the hundredth time, that she is _not their father_ , that this fear and shame and horror proves that she _is not him_.

But I _chose_ , Leia will tell her brother. I gave in. I'm too weak, I can't stop it, I'll be just like—

No, Luke will say, cutting her off. You won't. Because you have me. And Han. And Chewie, Carlist, Mon. Wedge and Janson and Tycho. Leia, you have so, _so_ many others who love you, and we won't let you go down that road.

But I couldn't stop it, Leia will say again.

Luke will be silent for a long moment. Will simply hold her close, rocking his sister gently. And then, softly, he will say, Then let me teach you how to control it.

Leia will not agree then—not in that minute, that hour, even that night. But the next day she will go to her brother, and she will nod. Teach me, she will say. I need to learn to control this thing.

But that is not yet. That is still yet to come.

For now...for now, Leia merely stands above the man on the ground, his face stained with blood, and watches with hard eyes as he cries

"Get up," Leia orders, voice cold.

Ariel does not move. He just gurgles, flat on the ground, tears creeping into his hairline.

"I said get up," Leia says again, colder.

The soldiers behind move forward, ready to make their prisoner obey the princess's command. But once again Leia holds up a hand, halting them in their tracks.

She looks back down at Ariel. "Get up," she commands.

And this time Ariel has no choice but to obey.

"I will get up," he mutters, words barely discernible. His eyes are glass, no understanding in their dull blue. But his body knows what his broken mind cannot comprehend.

He staggers to his feet.

"Now you understand the horrors you've inflicted," Leia says, stepping forward into Ariel's personal space, forcing him to look at her though she does not know if he truly sees her.

He just continues to cry.

Leia looks up, past Ariel's bowed and shuddering shoulders, to the soldiers. She nods. They move forward, seize Ariel's arms, shove him forward, around Leia.

Leia does not move. She simply stands there as Ariel is escorted around the corner and out of sight, staring at the drops of blood slowly sinking into the cracks in the road.

She crosses her arms, swallows, Remembers metal walls and floor and ceiling, the feel of needles in her flesh. Remembers the press of a foreign mind against hers, swallowing her whole and dragging her again and again to death and insanity.

She remembers the helplessness, the terror, the sickening feeling of such an intimate invasion.

And with that final memory, Leia's legs give out. She crashes to her knees, to her hands, and she vomits until there is nothing left in her body but hatred and disgust and horror at her own cruelty, her hypocrisy.

Oh, Force, she thinks, retching and trembling, what have I done?

.

 _I was once the Empire's prisoner.  
Look at me now._

* * *

 **Notes II:** Thoughts? Emotions? Feelings? I'd love to hear about them.


End file.
